POLL: Favorite second instrument?

For me:
2: Banjo

Distantly followed by:
3. Drums
4. Mandolin

I can pick up a bass and play some notes but despite a good amount of crossover I can't actually play bass. I wander around the beat a bit- on guitar it's "feel," on bass it's "inability to play bass"

 

Would love to learn banjo, bluegrass style. Played saxophone ages 10-13, just after I'd started guitar... boring instrument to play for me, didn't really care for it.

I play (poorly) keys but have a lot of familiarity with the accordion, family member was quite accomplished at it. The bass side still makes my head spin. Learning that would take some time.

 

I took clarinet lessons for a few years ( and wanted to play the sax too) as a kid.

Long sentence:
I'm not sure, but I've always wondered if I had gone to a public HS in the 1970's
( with a marching band or orchestra)

instead of a boarding prep HS
( no band, but with a pretty progressive Folk Group- acoustic and electric guitars, drums!)
That I might be a real clarinet/sax player today?
Instead of the rock guitar god I am today!

 

Started young playing trumpet, picked up guitar as teen. Over the past ten years or so started playing drums, bass, keys, sax and flute - going to start violin soon as I get one!

 

I played mandolin for many years, but it got to be too hard on my hands. I'd love to get back into it someday. And the trombone was my first instrument; we watched Treme recently and I'm kind of jonesing to pick it up again.

 

I tried mandolin, bass, and banjo. I don't mean just pick them up, I mean bought them and put a lot of time in on them. The banjo, to play five string bluegrass was the hardest. I really thought I was going to become a banjo player there for a while, but I was only fooling myself. A guy can buy a guitar, and learn a few chords, and maybe learn to play the melody of a few songs, and BOOM he's a guitar player, but playing the banjo can't be faked. I could get by on bass, but even though I had a decent bass and a good amp, I realized one day that I really wasn't really interested in playing bass anymore. The mandolin now that it's gone is just kind of a shimmering memory of times gone by. It doesn't hurt to try, but it doesn't hurt anything to quit either.

I forgot to mention, that when I was a kid, I played trumpet in a marching band. Sometimes I'd play the baritone when no one else would. I tried the saxophone long enough to fake it, but every time I picked one up and played a song or two on it, ducks flying south would land in the school yard and start holding a convention.

 

I still blow tenor sax occasionally

 

Where is the Native American flute option? Just sayin'

 

I picked none, though I've always been a big fan of the cello. I'm pretty sure that me sawing away on a cello would, unfortunately, lead to the end of a beautiful relationship with ms. darkwaters. I once tried to learn to play the tin whistle and was kindly requested to please stop...

 

Love my soprano ukulele. The thing I've come to realize is that the ukulele isn't just "a small guitar minus its two lowest strings". It's not just a toy! I use the old-style "a D F# B" tuning on my Martin S-0 soprano. It's kind of like having a capo on the seventh fret of a guitar. This tuning maintains the same basic intervals as the first four strings of a guitar, except that the fourth string (the "a") is tuned UP an octave HIGHER than you would expect (that's why it's designated with a lower-case "a" up above). From left to right, the open strings produce the familiar "my dog has fleas" melody. This is known as "re-entrant" tuning, and it turns the instrument into a very different animal in terms of chord voicings (though the shapes will be very familiar to guitar players), and of course, you don't really get any "bass" notes to work with, so it can be challenging to make things work-- but very fun, and it keeps my mind sharp! I love to work out "personal" arrangements to accompany myself singing my favorite songs from the sixties and seventies. The soprano uke is perfect for this. It works surprisingly well, and I think it's partly because the uke and my voice sort of "stay out of each other's way". With a little practice, you can walk in somewhere with nothing but that little uke and your voice and deliver a really nice performance. The ultimate light-packin' gig! Anyhow, sorry to run on and on here, but I highly recommend the ukulele!

 

My “true” choices are electric bass and pedal steel.
Of the available choices, violin and mandolin.
My late Dad played those.

 

I learned Hammer Dulcimer, Mountain Dulcimer and Tin Whistle over the years, but I don't play anything these days except guitar. Nothing wrong with branching out, but if your goal is to get good on guitar, then play your guitar.

 

1. non-pedal steel guitar
2. guitar
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9
10. everything else

 

I voted for saxophone. It may not be polyphonic but the overtones in a single note are wonderful.

(I would hesitate calling the violin a less conventional instrument)

 

Upright bass or drums.

Upright because the role is hardly ever doubling guitar. You have to really think about outlining everything. You have a lot of control over directing the feel of tunes. Plus you can make some great noises with a bow.

Drums because working out that sort of coordination step by step translates well in fingerpicking land. It also really improves your rhythm. When you have to match something with an instantaneous attack to a metronome, instead of a soft attack like a guitar string, it really blows your mind how wiggly timing is in most music. You actually hear timing down to the phase.

 

Jazz Bagpipes! Yeah buddy.

 

bassoon

 

Piano